Posted
by
Soulskill
on Tuesday April 29, 2014 @02:50PM
from the can-you-hear-me-now dept.

New submitter freddieb writes: "An individual who had been jamming cellphone traffic on interstate 4 in Florida was located by FCC agents with the assistance of Hillsborough County Sheriff's Deputies. The individual had reportedly been jamming cellphone traffic on I-4 for two years. The FCC is now proposing a $48,000 fine for his actions. They say the jamming 'could and may have had disastrous consequences by precluding the use of cell phones to reach life-saving 9-1-1 services provided by police, ambulance, and fire departments.'"

The passengers will help look around for traffic. Also, you can "ignore" passengers in person more politely than someone over the phone. The phone is a reduced communication medium. The quality is worse, so tone can be distorted, and you get no visual cues of the person to help you understand, so you focus more on the phone than a person sitting next to you to get the same level of understanding. The quality of conversation is different as well. You can "tune out" the people in the car more easily, your wife is asking about dinner, the kids are asking to go to the new movie. But the phone call is your boss or customer, and you need to get that information 100% correct.

There's a long list of reasons that a phone call is different from a passenger. That you can't think of any indicates a problem with you, not those who are seeking a ban to phones, but not passengers.

That's the current law in most places. And, as you note, it is unenforceable. Much like tailgating in Texas is legal. It's illegal to follow so closely as to not be able to stop safely, but in practice, it's a ticket that is only given after one crashes, and never for following someone at 6" at 65 mph, as "I didn't crash" is considered a valid defense. Though I haven't paid attention much since they changed all traffic rules from crimes to infringements, so maybe it sticks better now that you aren't gua

"There's a long list of reasons that a phone call is different from a passenger."None of which has been actually shown to distract any more then having a passenger, or kids, or the radio, or a blond in a convertible drive by..

Yeah, talking on the phone is only as bad as drunk driving [utah.edu]. From the study: "We found that people are as impaired when they drive and talk on a cell phone as they are when they drive intoxicated at the legal blood-alcohol limit”. It doesn't matter if the call is made on the phone or using a hands-free set, having the conversation is the distracting part. From the article:

"The study found that compared with undistracted drivers:

Motorists who talked on either handheld or hands-free cell phones drove slightly slower, were 9 percent slower to hit the brakes, displayed 24 percent more variation in following distance as their attention switched between driving and conversing, were 19 percent slower to resume normal speed after braking and were more likely to crash. Three study participants rear-ended the pace car. All were talking on cell phones. None were drunk."

It is true that there are a lot of things that distract drivers and every time there is a cell phone thread this point is brought up. The world isn't black and white (distracting vs. non-distracting). There are differing levels of distracted driving depending on the activity performed. Tuning the radio is not as distracting as watching TV. Smoking is not as distracting as making icy margaritas. And talking to a passenger is not as distracting as talking on a phone (although talking to a passenger while driving is distracting). When laws are made to restrict driving, legislatures must balance taking away freedom with a compelling public interest. Obviously some states feel that the freedom to use your phone while driving is outweighed by the societal harm from drivers distracted by such activities.

With your sig, I am really surprised that you take this position. Long before Dunning and Kruger wrote their famous paper it was well known that nearly everybody overestimates their skill in driving (c.f George Carlin on "idiots" and "assholes"). Have you considered that maybe you don't drive as well as you think you do when you are talking on the phone?

"It seems counterintuitive: why is talking on a cell phone while driving any more distracting than talking to a passenger? The reasons have to do with the way our brains process information, reports the Harvard Mental Health Letter."

"One study using a driving simulator found that drivers conversing by cell phone were more likely than those talking to passengers to drift between lanes and to miss an exit they were instructed in advance to take. When the researchers analyzed the complexity of the conversations in this study, they found that drivers and passengers tended to modulate their speech in response to external traffic cues. For example, they stopped talking when a traffic problem developed, or the passenger would offer advice to help the driver navigate. "

With your sig, I am really surprised that you take this position. Long before Dunning and Kruger wrote their famous paper it was well known that nearly everybody overestimates their skill in driving (c.f George Carlin on "idiots" and "assholes"). Have you considered that maybe you don't drive as well as you think you do when you are talking on the phone?

No he hasn't, nor will he.

The crux of Dunning-Kruger effect is not that they are unskilled, rather that they are completely oblivious to how unskilled they are and we've known about it for far longer than Carlin, Bertrand Russell said in the 30's "The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt" and I'm sure there will be earlier examples. Dunning and Kruger wrapped some science around it however.

I'm one of the 4% of humans who can multitask, I dont use my phone whilst driving because I know how badly it affects my driving. Even though I can do two things at once, it still does force me to divide my attention and with the number of idiots on the road, I dont want my attention taken up by something else. Most people who think they can use their phone whilst driving are not driving properly, they think it's easy because they dont bother with things like signalling, checking mirrors and blind spots as well as vehicle management (keeping an eye on speed and other gauges).

I think that either drunk driving is not as dangerous as it is made out to be, or talking on the cellphone is not as dangerous as drunk driving. The reason is that cellphone use in cars has exploded (as it has in general), yet we continue to see a reduction in fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled.

If we go back to 1992, when cell phones were something owned only by the very few and expensive per minute so not used a lot, we have 1.75 deaths/100mvmt. In 2002, when they were getting fairly common, but still not all pervasive (about 49% of people had them), it was 1.51. In 2012 when practically everyone (95% or so) has them, and they do a lot and are the main means of communication, 1.14 (2012 is the last year I can find stats easily for both figures).

Likewise deaths per 100,000 people went down from 15.4, to 14.9, to 10.8.

So though people are driving as much as ever, and cellphones have gone from a rarity to something everyone has in two decades, we see traffic fatalities continue to drop.

That doesn't seem like it should be the case if indeed it is as dangerous as driving drunk. Either it isn't, or the dangers of drunken driving have been vastly overstated.

I'm not dismissing the studies out of hand, but I think that more need to be done, and more controls on things. I think there may be some bias creeping in since there seems to be this want among many researchers for cellphone use in cars to be a bad thing.

It makes me suspicious that something supposedly such a problem could experience such growth, and yet roads could get much safer.

While cars have been getting safer, no doubt about that, if there is another force counteracting that, making driving more dangerous, then you don't expect to see numbers go down so much.

In fact another part of the decreased death rate is cellphones themselves. When an accident happens, cellphones allow first responders to be contacted quickly and help to arrive soon. Seconds count with critical injuries.

I can stop talking and put the phone down. If the the person keeps talking, it doesn't matter.

That you claim you are capable of that is irrelevant. That people, in general, don't is causing thousands of deaths. I don't care what some guy "claims" he does better than everyone else. I care about what can be done to prevent preventable deaths.

Did you think about that at all? Or when driving do you star at your passengers?

How's your treatment for glaucoma going? For those of us not functionally blind, we can "see" our passenger without taking our eyes off the road.

None of which has been actually shown to distract any more then having a passenger, or kids, or the radio, or a blond in a convertible drive by..

You don't need to hold a device to ear to converse with the passenger.You don't need to take your eyes off of the road to call the passenger.The passenger doesn't display text and images in front of you. (If they do sedate them before letting them in your car next time)The passenger doesn't vibrate in your lap startling you. (Unless they're a good passenger, but then again that shouldn't be startling)

If you don't have a hands free setup, which a lot of people don't, and if t

the two are entirely different. you don't shout and concentrate as much with a real person there vs the phone. the phone will cut in and out and distract you; people won't. and finally, the passenger will see that an 'issue' is coming up and probably be quite (or tell you there is a problem ahead). the cell phone will have no idea what your environment is like and they'll continue on blathering while you rear-end the guy who stopped short, in front of you.

I would agree. Also statistically, driving with a passanger and talking to them is about as dangerous as talking on the cellphone while driving. So since that isn't practical to ban... the cell phone issue is more of an older generation whining about the next new thing.

The scientific literature is mixed on the dangers of talking on a cell phone versus those of talking with a passenger. The common conception is that passengers are able to better regulate conversation based on the perceived level of danger, therefore the risk is negligible. A study by a University of South Carolina psychology researcher featured in the journal, Experimental Psychology, found that planning to speak and speaking put far

I doubt all distracted driving accidents are attributable to cell phone voice calls. Texting, shaving, eating, drinking a beverage, spanking kids, head banging, receiving fellatio, messing with the stereo, messing with the GPS, tying a tie, and ogling the redhead on the side of the street are all distractions.

I doubt all distracted driving accidents are attributable to cell phone voice calls. Texting, shaving, eating, drinking a beverage, spanking kids, head banging, receiving fellatio, messing with the stereo, messing with the GPS, tying a tie, and ogling the redhead on the side of the street are all distractions.

In the article it states that the Sheriffs lost contact with dispatch too as they neared the car. So ignore his supposed noble effort to stop cell use while driving, he was actually endangering lives by blocking communications for first responders.

Sheriffs around here (FL) use the 800mhz public safety allocation (digital trunking/w encryption in their case - which requires a good signal to function), and a cell jammer would need to smash that range as well because some networks use frequencies around 800mhz or 850mhz.

This highlights why jammers are such a bad thing. The spectrum is crowded, and what might be perceived as useless by someone with a jammer might be neighbored by something important.

I don't know if this has occurred to you or not, but not everyone inside a car is driving a car. And if you do get into a car accident, it would be nice if you or someone in the area could call emergency services.

Blocking access to a service someone has paid for is "damage." The extent of the injury is mostly financial, and hard to quantify because there are a lot of injured parties who were effected over a two year period (none of whom will actually be receiving compensation). However, it easily could have contributed to personal injury and it would be very hard to know.

The purpose of the fine is not to compensate the injured parties, that would be very hard to do. It is meant to dissuade him and others from undert

So you'd rather have them careening down the freeway at 80MPH with one hand on the wheel and one hand holding their smartphone while looking down at it to see why the call just got cut off?and when they crash into someone else, no one can call for an ambulance?

I dunno about you, but I noticed a long time ago that not all drivers are created equal nor are all drivers on cell phones. In fact, the crash studies that found drivers who get in accidents with cell phones also get in more accidents than normal without cell phones really hit that one home.

I really think there are just some people who are inattentative, and will let anything distract them from driving. Sure most people have their moments of distraction but I think most people are able to realize when things are distracting and are able to choose the situations in which they take those risks.

OTOH the people I know who are some of the worst drivers.... are constantly on their cell phone, and, seem to just not prioritize driving at all. This would be meaningless anecdote if not for the fact that.... this is exactly what studies have found... whereas most people drive more cautiously while on phones (often slower) this particular group of people actually take MORE risks while using the phone.

The thing is, the phone didn't cause this, accident rates have not significantly gone up....these people were always out there...they were just less identifiable.

Sounds about right. There was a guy on NPR a while back who was talking about how the number of accidents per year hasn't gone down in a generation or two; completely ignoring how much population has increase (30% since just the 70s) and miles driven have gone up, and number of cars on the road etc.... but the raw unadjusted number....about the same... talk about having your head up your own ass.

Why? So he can continue to break the law, disrupt peoples activities, and put their lives at risk?

You don't like people using the phone while driving. Well guess what, there are people in range that aren't driving that the jammer was Fing up. There have been multiple times I've been in a car and had to call in an emergency because of vehicular wrecks, semi-trucks driven by drunks, fires, and a trestle collision.Don't forget about everybody else that's not even in a car, yet still in range to be Fd up by that jammer. People walking along, in their homes, etc.Of course, if it just magically only affected cell phones, it would still be limited effects, but guess what, cell phones don't use a single contiguous band of frequencies. Other things do use those gaps between the cell phones, so you're screwing up even more things! In some cities that would be part of their emergency response systems. I know of a couple of places that have sensors at various places, and guess how they report their information? Yes, via cell phone.

The guy was an inconsiderate asshole that was a greater potential danger to the public than the morons using phones while driving. In my opinion, he's lucky they're only going for the fine instead of also slapping him with a public endangerment charge of some kind. (If he is in one of the areas where it might mess with the ERS, then they could totally screw him.)

If someone is doing something illegal, call the cops.If someone is doing something you don't like, but it isn't illegal, suck it up fat boy!If you choose to break the law and screw with everyone else, possibly putting people at risk instead of the previously mentioned actions, you deserve to have your sanctimonious ass thrown in a deep dark hole.

Yeah, because breaking the law in and of itself is never justifiable, right? As far as lives go, you'd have to offset the number of denied 911 calls that would've saved someone against the number of accidents he prevented by denying cellnet access to all those childadult accidents-waiting-to-happen. Really, it goes either way, and I'll bet the difference he made either way was negligible.

As far as critical infrastructure goes, it should be hardwired, with RF as an emergency fallback. It seems everyone, i

Where I live, it's currently only illegal to text while driving, and even then, only if you're under a certain age (21, I believe), although there is legislation in the state Legislature that would expand the texting ban to all ages.

Which just goes to show how idiotic our legislative processes can be; I can only presume they didn't make texting while driving illegal for everyone in the first round had something to do with the law being passed in an election year.

According to TFA, it took 3 days to find the guy. And the people that did the investigation were getting paid anyway (you don't think they went out and hired extra investigators for this, do you). The 'cost' was $0.

Trying to assign those costs to individual cases is meaningless, unless the cases have specific costs over and above the usual (such as requiring overtime).

Why?

False fire alarm keeps going off at your business? Well then, we're going to bill you for rolling the trucks - because a large fire department has to staff based on the number, type and location of calls that they get, and they have to staff to handle a long slew of false alarms.

All sorts of municipalities bill you when you use their services - emergency or not, requested or not. Ambulances will gladly take your unconscious body to the hospital and charge you more than the gas used.

Sort of. Simple triangulation is more difficult, but if you know generally what route he's taking, just stand on the side of the road with a scanner and wait for it to go ape-shit as he drives by. You should be able to narrow it down to a half-dozen cars at that point and then have another cop 20 meters down the road motion for them all to pull over.

It's quite an obvious question isn't it? So obvious that it's already been asked and answered in TFA:

Mr. Humphreys admitted that he owned and had
operated a cell phone jammer from his car for the past 16 to 24 months. An inspection of the vehicle
revealed the cell phone jammer behind the seat cover of the passenger seat. Mr. Humphreys stated that he
had been operating the jammer to keep people from talking on their cell phones while driving.

Now, if it was a movie theater, I could see someone jamming cell phones. But on a road? Why?

Was he using an over-powered machine and doing it by mistake? Was he just insane?

Plenty of APKs out there. This guy just kicked it up a notch (and went IRL). Worse than an internet spammer crank, not nearly as bad as the Unabomber, but somewhere in the middle of the nuisance/danger spectrum

The Slashdot Beta is already having disastrous consequences on this website. The beta site just crashed my browser, and while there currently is an option to proceed to the old version (which I managed to click, just in time, after restarting my browser), I'm sure that even this option will soon disappear.

I'm not an old timer ranting just for the heck of it, (Disclaimer: I've just been on this website for close to 6 years now, five of those were during my engineering degree. Note that 6 years is a very short period of time, compared to some of the commenters who frequent this website, they've been here for much longer, though the way things are going, I doubt that they're going to stick around). The beta is truly unusable, is just a blatant advertisement for tech jobs by the new owners of this website, and destroys the comment system entirely.

I don't come here to read "News for Nerds", because the submissions made these days are just a blatant waste of time. What I do come here for are the comments. There is an absolute wealth of experience among the users on this website, from system admins to web developers to people with all sorts of careers, and from all sorts of backgrounds, not just technology. I come here to read their comments. This is also one of the greatest places to find absolute gems of wit (+5 Funny, I'm looking at you). I attempted to use the Beta to this purpose, but it failed miserably.

TL:DR; I come here for the comments, I won't be coming here any more if the beta becomes the default. Yes, this is a rant. Yes, this is offtopic. Yes, this will be modded as such. But I just needed to say that. Thanks.

Many of the best commentators from here are also active there, so there's plenty of insightful comments. The overall volume is just low because of recent events.

It got a lot of comments when it was first unveiled, but a bit of drama with the operators that kept making it to the front page, combined with a determination to post more frequent stories than anyone wants, seems to have taken the shine off, and scared plenty of early-adopters away.

If the government had actually dealt with known issues regarding driving and cell phone use, his vigilantism would not have been necessary. I know I have thought about doing the same thing myself. And I wonder how many politicians receive contributions from the cell phone companies.

Still... he committed a crime and should be punished. Civil disobedience requires a willingness to accept the punishment to help solve the problem.

His vigilantism wasn't necessary. He accomplished nothing at all with his nonsense than to possibly create a public hazard. What about car passengers? Are they "allowed" to use the phone? How many drivers do you suppose tried redialing again and again? He solved nothing at all. What arrogance.

I hate when people talk, text and drive. You jam somebody, they are going to take the phone from their head and try to call again, or at least figure out what is going on. This is probably more distracting than just talking to somebody.

Imagine he was in an accident and rendered unconscious with his car still powering the jamming device. Assume it was a single car accident, no need to be cruel to others. Anyhow, nobody can call for help and nobody thinks to switch off the ignition in his vehicle which is clearly not running. If it jammed first responders communication equipment too, all the better. He could enjoy a nice long wait for an ambulance.

The Hillsborough Sheriff deputies reported that communications with police dispatch over their 800 MHz two-way portable radios were interrupted as they approached the SUV...On June 14, 2013, agents from the Tampa Office tested the seized cell phone jammer and confirmed that it was capable of jamming cellular and PCS communications in at least three frequency bands: 821-968 MHz, 1800-2006 MHz, and 2091-2180 MHz. ...Public safety radio systems (such as those used by police, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians) operate in several portions of the 800 MHz band, which consists of spectrum at 806-824 MHz paired with spectrum at 851-869 MHz.

Most jammers work by blasting noise on whatever channels you are trying to block.

Perfect band pass filters are not a thing the exist, especially not for transmitters. Especially not for transmitters cobbled together by some guy on the cheap. The assumption that they do is why they (rightfully) smacked down LightSquared.

See that slot right below "Cellular?" You know, that cut-away that has all the "Public Safety" allocations? Now, let's look at a quote from the FCC posting:"According to deputies from the Sheriff’s Office, communications with police dispatch were interrupted as they approached Mr. Humphreys’ vehicle."

The jammer was blocking police radio. Not just cell phones. He was actively interfering with public safety communications. NON-CELLULAR public safety communications.

Personally? $48,000 is getting off easy. I'd add another order of magnitude onto it.

From a different point of view... he possibly increased the likelihood of a distracted driving accident from callers looking at their phone muttering "wtf" to see why the call was dropped instead of keeping their eyes on the road.

Please post your evidence that this:
A) "Definitely stopped several talking and driving accidents"
B) didn't cause any accidents due to people being distracted by the dropped call.
C) didn't cause any injuries or deaths when his jamming "interfered with first-responder communications"

While you are at it, exactly how many times a month do you drive I4 in the Tampa area?

On April 29, 2013, the Enforcement Bureau (Bureau) received a complaint from Metro
PCS4 that its cell phone tower sites had been experiencing interference during the morning and evening
commutes in Tampa, Florida. Based on the location of the towers and the times that the alleged
interference occurred, the Bureau determined that the likely source of the interference was mobile along
Interstate 4 between downtown Tampa and Seffner, Florida.

On May 7, 2013, agents from the Bureau’s Tampa Office (Tampa Office) initiated an
investigation into this matter and monitored the suspected route. On May 7, 8, and 9, 2013, the agents
determined, using direction finding techniques, that strong wideband emissions within the cellular and
PCS bands (i.e., the 800 MHz to 1900 MHz band) were emanating from a blue Toyota Highlander sport
utility vehicle (SUV) with a Florida license plate. On May 9, 2013, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s
Office (Hillsborough Sheriff), working closely with the agents from the Tampa Office, stopped the
Toyota Highlander SUV. The Hillsborough Sheriff deputies reported that communications with police
dispatch over their 800 MHz two-way portable radios were interrupted as they approached the SUV.5

So it took them a grand total of three days to find the guy. The two years figure comes from his own admission of how long he's been using the jammer.

As a google for "BDA" brings up "British Dental Association" maybe you could be a bit more descriptive?

Are you saying the man accidentally was jamming cell traffic?

I guess it could happen. When I was in high school I built a spark gap and jacobs ladder [wikipedia.org] out of a neon sign transformer. When I turned it on for the first time, the radio I was listening to stopped working. If I had one of these in my trunk driving down the interstate it'd probably render cell phones inoperable, AFAIK I knocked out radios with

Is it worth it to maintain free communications for people? Passengers in the cars were unable to call anyone as well. It's arrogant behavior to think you have the right to jam people's communications. I think a little jail time would be appropriate as well, or at least about 200 hours of community service picking up trash on the roadside.

It impeded communication between the police communication centre and the police cars. It wasn't just cellphones, he was jamming emergency services communications too. It was the police who complained. He was broadcasting wideband signals between 800MHz and 1900MHz.

So someone who is drunk behind the wheel should not be prosecuted? They haven't hurt anyone yet. Being drunk behind the wheel is not a problem except that it increases the probability of an accident. In many cases probability counts as well. Considering there is a probability of someone dying due to the presence of the jammer it is pretty serious.

Evidence? Seems to me that it is more likely he could have caused accidents, because now the idiot who was going to make a call (or was in the middle of a call) is going to be looking at his phone to check signal strength, redialing, getting frustated, etc.